


Duluth, 55806

by stellaastro



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Always Female Dean, Always Female Sam, Character Study, My First Fanfic, POV Sam Winchester, Please Go Easy, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 16:20:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8109229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellaastro/pseuds/stellaastro
Summary: Some people are earlybirds. Sam's not one of them.





	

If you were to walk past Diane Winchester on the street or strike up a casual conversation with her in a cafe, you would never peg her as the early bird type. It isn’t that she strikes one as lazy, precisely. It just seems that she is particularly well acquainted with - and very fond of - the many delights life had to offer. She doesn’t seem the type to count sunrises among them. 

It’s a funny thing, though, growing up with a soldier for a parent. The habits that are second nature to them are passed on, by design or osmosis, and the heavy-lidded hedonism of last night’s fun loving party girl is instantly banished at the first beep of an alarm. Diane can spring out of bed before a clock sounds twice, and be dressed and scraping the frost off a car in a Duluth motel parking lot before her baby sister can make peace with the fact that morning has indeed broken. At least, Samantha is fairly certain this is Duluth. They are heading south to some tiny town near the Iowa border, where they are supposed to pick up Mom after she cleared said backwater of a trio of ghosts. It is January, and Sam has decided that she never wants to be in Minnesota in January again in her life. Fuck the paranormal. This particular January morning, fuck getting up for any reason. And fuck Di. And fuck Mom, too. Fuck Mom in particular.

They are only five or six hours out from Sioux Falls and Uncle Bobby, where Sam can close herself in a bedroom that has only one bed in it and no coin slot for making it shake. They could re-enroll in the high school there, where she has already spent a half a semester shooting for the debate team and reading ahead in her Shakespeare textbook. Maybe all of them can sleep a solid eight hours in a row instead of jerking to every ninety minutes, hands slid under pillows searching for cold iron, hearts pounding. Maybe Di would even hit the snooze button for once in her life. 

They won’t, though. It’s only been four months since the last trip through Bobby’s place, and most years they were lucky if they saw him once. Mom always said it was because she didn’t want to wear out their welcome, but the girls both knew better. Something about being in the same place twice, or the same place for too long, or with the same people too often, made Mom jumpier than a half-feral cat. Bobby’s wasn’t on the agenda. Elysian was. They can be in Elysian before lunch if Sam can pull herself out of the worn, bleach-scented sheets. Hell, if Diane has her way, they can divide and conquer at the gas station, Sam grabbing weak coffee and stale donuts while Di gasses up the Beast, and shave off the ten minutes of breakfast time. Combined with the way Diane drives, that will put them south of the Cities possibly before Mom has time to kick off her own inadequate bedding.

This is not the first time that Samantha has wished Diane was exactly what she seemed, because Diane Winchester seems like a sleep-til-noon kind of a girl. Sam burrows her head under the covers, because she knows that any second, her sister will come bursting through that door - 

“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty. Get your ass up. I want to try to avoid rush hour in the Cities if we can.” Sam’s duffel bag lands directly on her legs, an unmistakable signal. 

Fuck Diane Winchester and her ridiculous attitude. Sideways. Sam says as much.

“Whatever, Princess. Chariot’s pulling out in 5. Be in it. I’m not explaining to Mom that I had to leave your sorry butt in beautiful Duluth, birthplace of pie a la mode.” There is a raging waterfall of readying noises: the hollow thump of shampoo bottles and hairspray cans, the rustle snap of denim being folded and stowed, the cool clack of a gun clip being ejected and replaced, an efficient zip that is as final as the grave.

Samantha doesn’t dare delay no longer. Although the unit under the front window whines in a valiant effort to produce heat, the air outside of the pilled blanket is chilly and somehow slightly damp. She shakes a brown tangle out of her eyes, and before she can sigh, the covers are unceremoniously stripped away.

“GET UP.”

Anger - well, annoyance, really, because no one stays mad at Diane for long - makes her ball up all her clothes together, dirty and clean, and shove them willy-nilly into the duffel. She knows it will earn her a scornful lecture from her sister when they bunk down for the night, and she knows she runs the risk of either tight-lipped disapproval or a ludicrous and unrelated punishment from her mother (please, God, not detailing the car. Not in this weather) but at the moment, it all seems worthwhile. This tiny defiance will pile up with all the others, and eventually there will be an avalanche of unwashed laundry and resentment. Maybe it will bury her family long enough for Samantha to get away.


End file.
